Is Happiness A Matter Of Choice?

I've come to wrestle with what the former secretary general of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjold wrote in his posthumously published and translated memoir known as Markings: "The chooser's happiness lies in his congruence with the chosen."

I had to think about that, and translate that statement into simpler terms I could understand, namely,
"A person's degree of happiness can be correlated with what he or she has chosen."

That insight flows from our being made in the image of God, from being blessed with an intellect and a will - the spiritual powers which enable us to know and to choose.

The intellect (a gift from God) is by its nature geared toward truth. The will (the ability which accompanies the intellect and therefore is also a gift from the Creator) is by its nature oriented toward what is good.

The will is that power by which we choose, the power that allows us to enjoy (or be burdened by) freedom.

By God's design human beings are blessed with the ability to make choices, to choose among the variety of good things in creation, such as choices in colors, sounds, foods, companions, etc., etc.

It is also possible, however, to choose evil things: to lie or be honest, to love or to hate, to conserve or waste, etc., etc.

That natural orientation in the will toward good is so strong that even when we choose to do evil we choose to do it not because it is evil but because we see some good in it. The robber robs the bank not because it is evil but because that's where the money is, and money is the good he seeks.

When the object of a potential choice is judged by the intellect to be evil, it is the cooperation of conscience (intellect and will working together) that is supposed to lead us to withdraw the choice from evil to good, from robbing to respecting other peoples' right to property.

To violate the principle of good over evil is to thwart the blessing (or burden) of bring human, a rational animal.

Granted the weaknesses within us (excessive pride, jealousy, greed, haltered, etc., etc.) can challenge the goodness of choice, and maybe even the judgment of intellect about what is good, we still carry some degree of responsibility. The two powers remain intact.

But, at least in theory, happiness is the natural by-product of the choices we make. Choose evil, and we work against the natural orientation of the will. We work against our very selves.

Happiness (peace of mind, restful harmony) can be challenged by the outward forces of evil (e.g., being betrayed, loss of a loved one, failure to achieve or to be what we should), but happiness regains its place within one's mind, heart and soul when we think it through and assess what is true and good.
(God's forgiveness and patience give us pause, and the reason to work it through.)

Th next time I determine I am unhappy I need to ask myself, "What choices have I made?" Maybe the very choice to be happy is all its takes to overcome my unhappiness. I must wrestle with Hammarskjold's  theory and my experience.